Oakland County Sheriff Joins White House Terror Briefing

Related Tags:

WASHINGTON (WWJ) – Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard spent part of the day at the White House, getting a briefing on homegrown terror incidents across the country.

Bouchard said that, as a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, he’s constantly analyzing such events for ways to make the Detroit area more safe. One example is the shootings at Virginia Tech.

“He had chained up the doors of an exit so that when he went in the other doors there was only one way out, and that was past him,” said Bouchard. “So, one of the first thing I did the the first day, or our staff did, was buy bolt cutters … to that a way out for hostages of victims in that potential situation was available.”

Bouchard said the thought of a terror attack is still something he loses sleep over.

“Absolutely, absolutely,” said Bouchard. “Because when you see things happen in other parts of the world or other parts of the country, the first thing that jumps into my mind is, could it happen here? And if it did, how do we react?”

“How do we prevent it, if we could? And if we can’t prevent it, how do we mitigate the impact?” he said.

Bouchard said he met Wednesday with the FBI Director as well as Homeland Security and DEA officials.

The Obama administration set up the briefing in response to an increase in attempted attacks by legal American citizens.